After I Do (11 page)

“Why?”

“Mostly because the love died,” I say, laughing. I look around, expecting to see everyone else laughing, but no one is laughing.

“Lauren, please tell me you’re joking.”

“Nopes.”

“How long ago was this?”

“A few weeks or so. Coupla weeks. But did you hear the part about how I got Thumper?”

“I think we should take Lauren home,” Rachel says, and my mom looks as if she’s about to argue with her but then doesn’t.

She kisses me on the cheek. “One of you will stay with her?”

Both Charlie and Rachel volunteer. So cute. Cutest little siblings.

“All right,” my mom says. “Good night.”

They both say good night, and as I’m just out the door, I call to my mom, “I accidentally dropped some cake into the corner over there.”

But I don’t think she hears me.

Charlie and Rachel put me in the backseat, and I can feel just how tired I’ve been this whole time. We hit a red light, and I hear Charlie tell Rachel to take Highland to Beverly Boulevard, and then he turns toward me and suggests I get some sleep. I nod and close my eyes for a minute, and then . . .

I
wake up to the sound of my doorbell ringing. The world seems cloudy and heavy, as if I can feel the air around me and it’s weighing me down. I start to stand up and realize that Rachel is lying in bed next to me. Thumper is in the corner coiled into a ball.

The doorbell rings again, and I hear someone go to open the door. My head feels like a bowling ball balancing on a wet noodle. I wade through my house until I see my brother and my mother standing on either side of my front door. Charlie must have slept on the couch.

“Hey,” I say to them. I can feel the sound of my voice pulsating through my head. It vibrates in my eyes and jaw. They both look at me. My mother has a cardboard drink tray of four coffees in her hand. Rachel comes up right behind me.

“Oh, good,” my mom says, stepping into the house. Thumper hears her and comes running, too. “You’re all up,” she says.

She hands Charlie one of the cups. “Americano,” she says, and she hands it to him.

He takes it and smiles at her. “Thanks, Mom.”

Mom then holds out a cup for Rachel, and Rachel walks up to her. “Skim latte,” my mom says.

With two more cups in the tray, my mom takes hers out and rests it on the table by the door and then takes the last one and gestures toward me.

“Double espresso,” she says. “I figured you’d need to wake up.”

I gently take it from her hands. “Thanks, Mom.”

She shuts the door behind her, and the chill in the air ceases a bit. I know that by this afternoon, it will be sweltering and hot, but the September mornings tend to be overcast and a bit chilly. My hands are cold, and the hot cup feels great in my palms.

“No coffee for Thumper, huh?” I say, making a joke, and my mother, what a mother, puts her hand into her purse and pulls out a sandwich bag with bacon in it.

“I had some extra bacon from breakfast,” she says. Thumper comes running toward her. My mom crouches down and feeds it to him, rubbing his head and letting him lick her face.

I am overwhelmed with love for my mom right now. She always knows just what to do. When do you learn that in life? When do you learn what to do?

My mom stands back up and looks at Rachel and Charlie. “Why don’t you guys go for a walk?” she says.

Charlie starts to decline, but Rachel intercedes. “Yeah,” she says. “We’ll take Thumper.” By the time Rachel grabs the leash, Thumper is so excited that to deny him would be cruel.

Charlie rolls his eyes and then resigns himself to it. “Yeah, all right.”

Within moments, they are out the door, the opening and closing of which send a chill back into the house. My mom looks at me the way you’d look at a dying bunny. “I think we need to talk,” she says.

“Yeah, OK,” I say, and I walk back to my bedroom and get into bed. It’s warm there, underneath the blankets. I can see my mother looking at my place and noticing all the things that are gone. She doesn’t mention it.

“So,” she says, sitting down next to me, pulling the tab of her coffee lid back, and blowing on the steam as it rises. “Tell me what happened.”

At first, I try to tell her the facts. When he left. Where everything went. I tell her about the fight at Dodger Stadium. I tell her about not feeling like I love him anymore. I tell her about the conversation about what to do. I tell her as much as I remember, as much as I can bear to think about.

But she wants more. She wants to know not just the when and the where but the how and the why. I spend so much time not thinking about these things that it’s hard to start thinking about them again.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asks.

“I don’t know,” I say, directing my gaze to my bedside lamp.

“Yeah, you do,” she says. “You know why.”

“Why?” I say. She sounds as if she knows the answer.

“No,
I
don’t know,” she says. “But I know you know.”

“It just didn’t come up naturally, I guess,” I say.

“That would never come up naturally. Were you waiting for me to ask you if you and Ryan were still together? And then you could say, ‘Actually, Mom . . .’?”

“I didn’t want to disappoint you. I didn’t want you to think that I . . . screwed it up, you know? I can fix this. I can fix it. It’s not broken. I can still do this.”

“Do what?”

“Be married. I can still do it.”

“Who says you aren’t doing it?”

“Well, I’m not currently doing it. But I can do it.”

“I know you can do it, sweetheart,” she says. “You, of anyone I know, can do anything you set your mind to.”

“No, but, like, I don’t want you to think I failed. Yet.”

“If your marriage does not work out—” she says, and she stops me from interrupting before I even decide to. “Which it will, I know it will. But if it doesn’t, it doesn’t mean you failed.”

“Mom,” I say, my voice starting to crack. “That is exactly what it means.”

“There is no failing or winning or losing,” she says. “This is life, Lauren. This is love and marriage.
If you stay married for a number of years and you have a happy time together and then you decide you don’t want to be married anymore and you choose to go be happy with someone else or doing something else, that’s not a failure. That’s just life. That’s just how love is. How is that a failure?”

“Because marriage is about a commitment to something else. It’s a commitment to stay together. If you can’t stay together, you fail at it.”

“Good Lord, you sound like Grandma.”

“Well, isn’t that the truth of it, though?”

“I don’t know,” my mom says. “I don’t know anything about marriage, obviously. I was only married for a few years, and where is he now?”

Where
is
my father now? Honestly, that’s a question I rarely think about. He could have a family in North Dakota, or maybe he’s living on a beach in Central America. Or he could be in the phone book. I have no idea. I’ve never checked. I ­haven’t ever searched for him, because I’ve never felt as if anything was missing. You only seek answers when you have questions. My family has always felt complete. My mother has been all I’ve needed. I forget that sometimes. I take for granted her ability to guide me, to guide our family, as its one true leader.

“But the way I see it,” she continues, “your love life should bring you love. If it doesn’t, no matter how hard you try, if you are honest and fair and good, and you decide it’s over and you need to go find love somewhere else, then . . . what more can the world ask of you?”

I think about what she’s said. I don’t really know what I think, I guess. “I just don’t want you to dislike Ryan,” I say.

“Honey, I love that boy as if he was my own child. I’m serious about that. I love him. I believe in him. I want him to be happy, just as much as I want you to be happy. And I could never fault anyone for doing anything in the name of their own truth.” Sometimes my mom speaks as if she’s a guest on
Oprah
. I think it’s because she spent twenty years watching guests on
Oprah
. “When you first started dating Ryan, I liked him because I could tell he was a good person. I learned to love him because he always put you first, and he treated you well, and I trusted him to do right by you. I still believe he does what he believes is the right thing for both of you. That doesn’t change because you two say you’re not in love anymore. That’s always been who he is.”

“So this isn’t the sort of thing where when we get back together, you won’t like Ryan anymore?”

My mom laughs and sighs at the same time. “No,” she says. “This isn’t one of those things. All I care about is that the two of you are happy. If only one of you can be happy, I have to go with blood on this one and choose you. But I want you both to be happy. And I believe you’re doing what it takes to be happy. Whether I understand it or would do the same thing in your shoes, or any of that, that doesn’t matter. I believe in the two of you.”

It’s weird how words from the right mouth at the right time can bolster you up and make you strong. They can change your mind. They can cheer you up. I’m glad Charlie spiked the punch. I’m glad I told my mom.

I can hear Charlie and Rachel come back in through the front door, and I assume that means that this conversation is over, but my mom calls out, “Give us another minute, OK?”

I hear Rachel call out, “Yup,” from the living room and then start talking to Charlie. Charlie’s voice carries louder than any of ours. Our voices might bounce off the walls, but his penetrates through them. I can hear his muffled laughing as I listen to the rest of what my mother has to say.

“Now, the one thing I am going to tell you, Lauren, is that you cannot hide this, OK? You need to be strong and be you and stop caring what people think and tell the goddamn truth. Be confident and proud of what you and Ryan are trying to do.”

“What are we trying to do?” I say. “I don’t understand what there is to be proud of.”

“You’re trying to stay married,” she says. “And be happy doing it. I’ve never accomplished it. So to me, that’s brave. To me, you are brave.”

It feels weird to hear, because this whole time, I’ve just been waiting for someone to call me a coward.

“OK,” my mom calls out. “You can come in now.”

Rachel comes to the door. Charlie is there behind her, and Thumper is at her feet. As I look at them in my house, I realize that it’s been a long time since we were all a family, just us. Ryan has been such a part of me that he became a part of this. But maybe it’s OK that he’s not a part of this right now. It’s nice to look at the faces around the room and see . . . my family.

My mom waves her hand to let them know that they are welcome. They all come sit on the bed, Thumper pushing his way into the middle, trying to get the attention of all of us.

“Everything OK?” Rachel says.

“Everything is good,” I say, and that seems to work as enough of a segue to get the conversation away from my marital troubles and toward other things, like what Charlie is going to do with his life. (He has no idea.) If Rachel is dating anyone (Whom would she be dating?) and whether Thumper may need another dose of flea medication. (Yes.) Charlie’s flight leaves tonight, and I think it’s making my mother sentimental.

“Can we do dinner at my house tonight?” she asks. “As a family?”

“My flight leaves at ten,” Charlie says.

“We can take you,” I tell him, referring to Rachel and myself. “We will just leave Mom’s around eight.”

“I could serve dinner around six?” she offers.

“Serve dinner?” Rachel asks. “Like, you’re gonna make our dinner?”

My mom frowns at her. “Why do you kids act like I’ve never made a meal?”

The three of us look at one another and start laughing. As much as we are all a family, we are also three siblings with a mother. Sometimes it is three against one.

“I have made dinner before, you know,” my mother continues, ignoring our laughter. “You’ll see. I’ll make something great.”

I appear to be the one feeling the most charitable. “OK, Mom. You got it. We’ll be there at six. Ready to eat a home-cooked meal.”

“Oh, you kids have made me so happy! I can’t even tell you. All three of you at my house for Sunday dinner.” She gets up off the bed. “Grandma and Fletcher are leaving in a few hours, so I should go have lunch with them. Then I’ll go grocery shopping. Not sure what I’m going to make,” she says. “But this is going to be great.” She nods to herself. “Just great.”

She gathers her things and says good-bye to all of us. I walk her out to her car to thank her for talking to me earlier.

“Honey, you do not need to thank me,” she says, getting into the front seat of her SUV. “I have three grown children. To be honest, it’s a relief to be needed.”

I laugh and hug her through the car window. I didn’t even realize I needed her until she just said it. How stupid is that? “We’ll see you tonight,” I say.

“Six o’clock!” she calls out as she pulls out of the driveway.

I nod and wave. I watch her drive away. I watch as her car, so big and fast, is eventually so far away that it looks small and slow.

D
inner is burnt, but I don’t think my mom actually realizes it. Despite the charred chicken and lumpy potatoes, all of the elements seem to click. No one really mentions Ryan. We make fun of Rachel. We ask about Bill. Charlie seems happy to be there. No one acknowledges how terrible the cooking is. To be honest, I don’t think any of us really care.

Mom made too much food. Or maybe we just couldn’t stand to eat very much of it. Either way, there are plenty of leftovers. By the time we have taken in all the dishes and put all the extras into Tupperware containers, it is time to head out.

“Well, who wants to take the chicken? Charlie? Will you eat it on the plane?”

“You want me to bring half a roasted bird carcass on a plane?”

Mom frowns at him and hands the chicken to Rachel. “You’ll eat it, right?”

“Sure,” she says. “Thanks, Mom.” Then she looks at Charlie and shakes her head. My mom pawns the green beans and carrots off on me and then thrusts the container of sweet potatoes at Charlie.

“You can take the potatoes, at least,” my mom says, but Charlie isn’t having it. He won’t relent. That’s part of what I’ve never understood about him, or what he’s never understood about life. Sometimes you should just take the potatoes and say thank you and then throw them in the trash when Mom’s not looking.

We say our good-byes and then head out on the road. Rachel has agreed to drive, because I’m still hungover from last night. I feel as if it will be days until I’m OK to operate heavy machinery. Charlie grabs the front seat, so I sit in the back.

I hate driving to the airport. LAX is a nightmare, but it’s more than that. The route is such an unattractive view of Los Angeles. You don’t see beaches and sunsets. You don’t see palm trees and bright lights. You see strip malls and strip clubs. You see parking garages and 7-Elevens. To ride to the airport is to see Los Angeles the way its enemies do: bleak, cultureless, boring, and fake.

So I don’t bother looking out the window and instead close my eyes and listen as Charlie and Rachel debate whether to take the freeway or La Cienega Boulevard. Rachel wins because she’s driving and because she’s right. The freeway will be clear at this time of night.

When we get to the terminal, Rachel turns left into the parking garage.

“Why are you parking the car? Just drop me off,” Charlie says. It doesn’t make a lot of sense, but our family doesn’t really drop people off. We pay the money to park the car. We walk across the lanes of traffic. We see you off at the security checkpoint. I’m not sure why.

“Stop, Charlie,” Rachel says. “We’re walking you in.”

Charlie rolls his eyes and starts to bitch about it and then stops himself. “OK,” he says. “All right.” So maybe he has learned to take the potatoes sometimes.

We park and walk out. Truth be told, we don’t have much to talk about. But when Charlie checks in and walks to the gate, when it’s time to say good-bye, I’m suddenly sad to see my little brother go. He’s ornery, and he’s kind of a jerk. He doesn’t say the things you should say to people. He spikes punch with Everclear. But he’s a good guy, with a kind heart. And he’s my little brother.

“I’m going to miss you,” I say to him as I hug him.

“Me, too,” he says. “And I’m proud of you, or whatever. You know, for what it’s worth.”

I don’t press him on it, the way I want to. I don’t sit him down and say,
What makes you say that? What do you really think of what I’m doing? Do you think I can fix this? Do you think Ryan will come back to me? Is my life over?
I just say, “Thanks.”

Rachel hugs him, too, and then he takes off, up the escalator and back home to Chicago, where people have seasons and cold air. I’ve never understood it. People come from all over the country to experience our sunny winters and mild summers. Charlie got out as soon as he could, looking for snow and rain.

As Rachel and I are walking back to the car, we get lost and end up on the floor below at Arrivals. It occurs to me that Arrivals is a much nicer place to be than Departures. Departures is good-bye. Arrivals is hello.

I happen to look toward the revolving doors. I see dads coming home to their families. I see men and women in business suits finding their drivers. I see a young woman, probably a college student, run toward the young man waiting for her. I see her wrap her arms around him. I see him kiss her on the lips. I see, on their faces, that feeling I once knew so well. I see relief. I see joy. I see that look people get when the thing they have been dreaming of is finally in front of them, able to be touched with the tips of their fingers and the length of their arms. I think I stare for a second too long, because she turns to look at me. I smile shyly and look away. I think of when it was me, when I was the one waiting at Arrivals for that one person I ached for. Now I’m the lady looking.

For a moment, I think that if I saw him right now, if Ryan were here, I’d have the same look on my face as this couple has. I want him in my arms that badly. But how long would it last? How long before he said something that pissed me off?

When Rachel and I finally get headed in the right direction, we walk out onto the street level and wade our way through people hailing cabs and hopping into their friends’ cars. We are standing at the crosswalk, waiting to cross the street, when I see two people waiting for a shuttle. As quickly as I would recognize my own face in the mirror, I know what I am looking at. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that I am looking at the back of Ryan’s head.

It doesn’t even register as weird at first; my brain simply processes it as a normal, everyday occurrence. Oh, here is that person who’s always around. Here he is. Except this time, he is holding the hand of a slim, tall brunette. And now he’s bending down to kiss her.

My heart drops. My jaw drops. Rachel starts crossing the street, but I just stand there, frozen. Rachel turns around to see me there, and her eyes catch mine. She follows my gaze, and she sees it, too. Ryan. Ryan at Arrivals. Ryan. At Arrivals. Kissing a woman. My heart starts beating so fast that I almost feel I can hear it. Is it possible to hear blood pulsing through you? Does it sound like a quiet, violent gong?

Rachel grabs my hand and doesn’t say anything. She is determined to get me out of this situation. She wants me to cross the street. She wants me to get into the car. But we have missed the walk signal, and we can’t just run through this steady stream of cars, as much as, right now, that feels like the only thing to do.

It’s good that she’s holding me. I fear that I lack the self-control not to go over there and knock him down. I want to pummel him to the ground and ask him why he would do this. Ask him how he looks at himself in the mirror. I swear to God, it’s as if I can physically feel the pain. It’s a physical pain. And it’s searing through me. And then the light turns, and the white walk sign is on, and I put one foot in front of the other, and I move forward, and I think of nothing but how much this hurts and which foot goes where. When we get to the other side of the street, when the walk sign turns into a red hand, I turn around and look at him. We are now separated by a sea of speeding cars.

When my eyes find him again, when they fixate on the front of his face, I can plainly see that I was wrong. It’s not him. It’s not Ryan.

I can spot Ryan in a crowd. I can recognize his scent from another room. Just a few months ago, we were separated at the grocery store, and I found him by recognizing his sneeze from a few aisles away. But at this airport, this time, I got it wrong. It’s not Ryan. All of that fear and jealousy and hurt and pain so sharp I thought it could cut me—it wasn’t real. It was entirely imaginary. It’s stunning, really, what I can do to myself with only a misunderstanding.

“It wasn’t him,” I say to Rachel.

She slows down and looks. “Wait, are you serious?” she says, squinting. “Oh, my God, you’re right.”

“It wasn’t him,” I say, stunned. My pulse slows, my heart relaxes. And yet I am still overstimulated and jumpy. I slow down my breathing.

Rachel puts her hand on her chest. “Oh, thank God,” she says. “I did not want to have to talk you down from that.”

We get into the car. I put on my seat belt. I roll down the window.
It’s OK
, I tell myself.
It didn’t happen.

But it will someday.

He’s going to kiss someone else, if he hasn’t already. He’s going to touch her. He’s going to want her in a way that he no longer wants me. He’s going to tell her things he never told me. He’s going to lie there next to her, feeling satisfied and happy. She’s going to remind him of how good it can feel to be with a woman. And while all of this is happening, he’s not going to be thinking about me at all. And there’s not a thing I can do to stop it.